Experience of My Kids for Online Exams

With Covid, much has changed and education is no different. Like the other parts of the world, education has gone online in Pakistan too. Work from home and study from  home have become a  normal thing. Taking papers online for the kids is not a new thing anymore.

Second year in a row, my kids will be appearing in online exams. Since March 2020, they’ve only went to school for 6 weeks. Last night had a chat with them about this experience. Older one desperately wants to go back to on campus school. Younger one prefers online school. As a parent, we are so confused as what exactly we prefer. On one hand we want them close and on the other hand, we really want them out of house at least for few hours a day or at least few days a week.

I didn’t let my daughter go back for even a day. She’s suffered, academically, but she’s safe. That’s more than enough. My kids were safe at school. Their school had excellent SOPs put in place. It was actually very impressive. They did get covid though, a month after they stopped going, but from home. So it’s not about the school or colleges but safety around the house itself. Workplaces and other public places are also a source of catching Covid so blaming just schools is not fair.

Excellent SOPs in LGS too but you never know. A friend’s son went to school absolutely fine, developed fever near break, ended up infecting another class fellow. I’m not saying it’s wrong to send kids to school, just that we should be happy they’re ok. For older one, it wasn’t really an issue, studying online. But the younger one isn’t really able to cope. We all dearly love our kids and want them to be safe and sound. We also want to make sure that while they are safe they don’t get behind in terms of education.

Now when we look back and still today, the truth of the matter is that we have not done very well when it comes to continuing education during Covid times especially private institutions who are chargng high could have implemented SOPs strictly. This will be the last year inshaAllah of this ordeal. My kids too want to go back to school as is wished by the parents. But if we don’t practice caution and if we don’t follow the procedures like wearing masks then there is no sooner end to this pandemic.

So let’s work together to get rid of this menace.